This commingling of disparate sounds presents challenges to producers too. This combination of low-quality (low fidelity, hence lo-fi) sound and substantial beats might seem like a contradiction, and in many ways it is, but it’s what gives the genre its signature sound. The trick here, however, is to ensure that your piano sounds treated but that your beats retain their heft, and don’t sound as if they’ve been through a bit-crusher seven times. The initial focus here should be to purposefully lower the quality of your sound. We encourage you to use this tutorial as a foundation that you can later build upon with your own stylistic garnishes. Many incorporate vocal samples from film and TV, others use natural ambiences, and some even bring in elements of acid. You’ll notice that besides the numerous sonic similarities between these songs and mixes, which include vinyl-style crackle, muffled drums and detuned instruments, each producer still has their own unique approach. You’ve probably heard this genre of music before, perhaps without being aware of it. Alternatively, you could go directly to the genre’s established producers, which include HM Surf, bsd.u, and Kupla. Searching for general terms such as ‘study music’, ‘relaxing lo-fi hip-hop’ and ‘chill-out sounds’ will likely yield a plethora of appropriate piano sounds that will help you tune your ear to the right frequencies for this tutorial.

If you’re new to lo-fi hip-hop or just want to dip your toes in before diving deeper and producing your own beats and melodies, we recommend you check out some of the regular lo-fi streams on YouTube or one of the many ready-made playlists on Spotify. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how you can achieve this sound using little but FL Studio’s native piano plug-in FL Keys, a few FL effects you may not know about, and a bit of nous. This sound has also become one of the most recognisable features of the equally popular contemporary lo-fi hip-hop movement.Įmotive-sounding lo-fi pianos playing mellifluous melodies form the heart of these composition styles. Most of the music that makes up this enormously popular trend of videos, streams and mixes is based on deeply chilled-out (and oddly out-of-tune) piano. Take a cursory glance at YouTube and you’re likely to see a slew of relaxation and concentration-aiding videos with names such as Beats to Study To and Relaxing Music 24/7.

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